Hi Vic!
This is a game that was on the radio (well, XM Radio), but I didn’t get a chance to listen much, as I was bouncing around running errands. My wife had an appt with some doctors for our son, then I had to go pick up my daughter from school. Then the four of us hung out in a playground near my daughter’s school for awhile. Was a nice afternoon. It did keep me from listening to much of the game at all, though. We need TiVo for radio still! Gah!!
Anyway, the two biggest points of this game are the powersticks came out in force today. Also, Tommy Hunter looked pretty good. First the Big Game Hunter…
Tommy went two innings (pretty standard for early March), and threw 22 pitches to 7 batters. Struck out two, walked nobody, and gave up just one hit. Looked pretty efficient, and you get the feeling that he could have kept going at this point. But again, March 2nd. That’s not the time to stretch out your pitchers. Maybe three next time.
Relievers didn’t fare nearly as well. There were seven of them. Relievers 1-4 all gave up runs. I didn’t hear any of those, to be honest. The only one I “heard” pitch was the last one, Pedro Strop, who only threw eight pitches to four batters. He allowed a hit, but no damage. He sounded sharp. Even the Angels broadcasters I was listening to thought the same thing.
The power was four longballs along with a double. The home runs were David Murphy, Ian Kinsler, Chad Tracy, and David Deeds. That was Murphy’s first of the spring.
This win gets us back to .500 for the season. Thursday is a pair of split squad games.

This was a game there was no broadcast for. No radio, no TV, and no mlb webcast, either. In the dark. Except for the twitter guys. That was the closest to a broadcast we got. But I couldn’t hang around the computer when this game was on.
The Rangers didn’t have a ton of power this game. In all, we had 10 hits, only two were doubles. And both of those were by guys I didn’t know (Jose Felix & Brian Barden). Everything else (save for two walks) was a single. We had a two spot in the third, which briefly put us up in the game (2-1 at the time). Barden’s double was the only “big” hit in the third. The others were singles, a bunt, and a groundout RBI – small ball there for sure.
The other two spot came in the 9th when we were mounting a comeback, but couldn’t complete the job. That two spot was a bit more bang bang in that it was a walk, a double, and then a single, scoring two. Just couldn’t get across the finish line.
I did see a clip of Arthur Rhodes on TV pitching from this game, and the clips they showed made him look quite good. His line was quite good. One inning, only faced three batters, struck two of them out on a total of nine pitches. If he can sustain that all season, it will have been a great move.
Other than that, most the of the pitching lines were OK. Four guys gave up runs – three guys did not. Of the four that gave up runs, only one is likely to be on the club (Matt Harrison), and he only gave up one. I know one of the others (Brett Tomko), and the others, nope, can’t help you there.
Hard to write a lot of unique stuff on just a box score, because as I’m writing this two days later, the link to the game summary story on mlb.com is coming up as a blank page!

I was in and out on this game yesterday. I had forgotten it started – I wasn’t yet in the habit of remembering game times during the season. it was after all only Game 2. :)
I started listening when picking up my kid from school, and it was 0-0 going into the third at that time. It was at that point that the sloppy bullpen play started. Colby Lewis pitched the first two innings, and while he was not sharp, he got the job done, and put up zeroes. Of the six relievers the Rangers threw out there, only one of them put up a zero. That was Corey Young in the 8th.
Michael Kirkman was first out. He gave up a three spot pretty darned quickly. But he then got out of the inning just as quickly. Darren Oliver gave up three as well, as did Zack Jackson later on. Three spots all over the place. But it was a sloppy game. Despite there being only three errors, it felt like about a dozen. Yeah, second game of spring, and subs and all that play into it for sure, but man. What a mess.
We had six doubles, a triple, and two home runs. We had five guys with two hits, the rest were singles scattered around the lineup. Definitely a sloppy game on both sides, but it’s not anything I haven’t said before. 25 hits and 23 runs don’t allow for commentary that talk about “crisp” performances. :)
Due to helping out with family duties at the time, I got to listen to the game partially on my computer, partially in the car on XM Radio, partially on my iPad cleaning up dishes. Was hart to focus on what was going on for sure.

Well, the Rangers 2011 campaign started with the first game of the season, a loss to the Royals. I wasn’t able to listen to any of this game. Mostly because this was a webcast game, and I couldn’t be tied to the computer. I could listen on my iPhone or iPad or something, but something different came up for me. My daughter and I ended up spending the day together after we got home from church. It was a fun day with her, and I wanted to do that more than listen to a webcast game. :)
Pitching wise, things were OK from what I see in the box. No glaringly ugly lines (like someone with an era around 80.00). Of the four runs the Royals got, two were unearned. Only two Rangers pitchers (CJ Wilson & Dave Bush) threw more than an inning (two each). Everyone else (Mark Lowe, Tanner Scheppers, Tateyama, Tucker & Strip) were just one inning each. Combined, the entire staff gave up just six hits, but it was well put together, as it was coupled with four walks to allow the four runs the Royals got.
Offensively, we had just seven hits and three walks. Nobody had more than one hit, and only one player had a hit and a walk. Our only runs came on a two run home run by a guy by the name of Doug Deeds in the sixth (don’t know him).
But as I said, can’t have a ton of insight into this one. I do plan on listening Monday, as it’s the 2011 debut of Eric Nadel!

And so it begins. Well, sort of. Today was an intersquad game. Doesn’t count in the spring training standings or stats, but it’s the first baseball the Rangers have played since losing to the Giants in early November.
We got a box score for the game, there were reports from the game (1 | 2), but it was’t broadcast anywhere. Did see some footage on MLB Network, though. Where’d they get that? Film it themselves? I would have liked to have seen that anyway.
I’m not going to get into player reports, you can read the reports from the guys who get paid to do this. I’ll write once the games are “real”. :)
There’s another one of these Friday. Not sure what they’re doing Saturday, but the first game is Sunday (the charity game), and then the first broadcast game is Monday. Looking forward to that.